


Metroid: Early Years.

by UncleJimbo1



Series: Metroid: Evolution of a hunter [1]
Category: Metroid Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:50:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UncleJimbo1/pseuds/UncleJimbo1
Summary: Samus has left the Galactic Federation and decided to seek other work. with only her power suit, gunship, a little money and the clothes on her back, what will happen to our stoic heroine.





	1. Preparations

The Chozo temple would be silent if it weren't for the rolling Zebesian winds. They were ruthless whichever way they blew, cold and full of dust that was scooped up in the low gravity from many miles away, only to be brought straight to the eyes of anyone unlucky enough to be on the planet. It was always windy on Zebes. When Samus was little, she was always wishing for a change in weather, whether it be snow or rain or anything, but she quickly learned to be careful what she wished for. When she heard the sound of rain, she climbed up onto the roofs of Chozodia and let it wash over her, only to find it was burning her skin. And the snow, fucking hell, the snow. She was having gas pumped out of her lungs for a week, writhing in agony all the while. Chozo DNA meant she could just about survive the conditions, but only just, and it was painful. Her training was also painful. The poor child was being put through gruelling exercises and drills to get her into peak physical condition all the while being subjected to various shocks and sharp pains to improve her concentration. Samus' training also included meditation, but of course, she had to do it in an old, semi-collapsed part of the temple, exposed to the elements. While doing this, Mother was monitoring her thoughts to make sure she was totally focused on a single word: 'Activate'. if her mind wandered, she'd have to stay in the temple longer.

Mother. this was all her plan. The Chozo had wisdom to give to their own kind, but humans were another ballgame altogether. Their great knowledge didn't seem to stop them from putting all their trust in a big brain in a jar. Samus never trusted mother, though it may have been something to do with the dust she was coated in after her meditation sessions.

Despite her apparent hate for the planet, Samus found herself wishing she could go back. She sat in her gunship and felt lonelier that ever before, and with loneliness comes boredom. In the space of a fortnight, she'd become so overcome with tedium that she spent some of the little money she had left on green hair dye and cello lessons. Any sense of discipline she had when training had now gone.

She rummaged through her storage containers, searching for something edible. She found a tin of something, put it in the cooker and stared blankly at it as it turned in the amber light. She took a moment to wander just exactly it was she'd decided to heat up. After it was done, she removed from the cooker and tore it open with her bare hands. She was still wandering what it was she had chosen as she was eating it, but she also discovered that she didn't care. However, she did care about her little money situation, which was dire when you consider that she had none left, so she logged on to the ship's computer and skimmed for jobs that she could ignore. Janitor? nope. Trash collector? Collector of trash ideas. Prostitute? Maybe. Galactic Federation officer? No, not again. She'd never go back to that. Samus was never a fan of orders, and there was no quicker way to be ordered about than to enlist into the Federation. That didn't prevent her from finding herself on the site, the cursor hovering over the enlist link. She fell back in her chair and bashed her skull against the headrest. Could she go back? She looked back at the display, the site laid out before her and she was going to do it. She was going to forgo her freedom to be a military pawn, but she didn't. She didn't, because she'd seen something out of the corner of her eye. It was an add in the website reading:

**_Wanted:_ **

**_Name: Malcar Gregg_ **

**_Crimes: Murder, Rape, Arson, Assault, Grand theft auto_ **

**_Reward (Dead): 150,000,000_**

**_Reward (Alive): 300,000,000_**

_**Last Known Location/Course: En Route to Jigrad** _

Jigrad. That was under space pirate control recently. Samus would know, considering she was instrumental in its liberation. One thing bothered her though: why Jigrad of all places. There couldn't be many buildings left, no real hiding places, the place was being built from the ground up after it was levelled and it was definitely crawling with Federation soldiers so why would Gregg go there of all places. It didn't matter though, it was a lot of money. As someone who's never been very rich at any point, Samus couldn't imagine, no matter how hard she tried, the kind of mad shit she could buy with even a hundred and fifty million, let alone the full three hundred. She punched Jigrad's coordinates into her flight computer and let her craft slip into autopilot as she left her chair and ventured back into her living quarters.

Samus could tell that Gregg was dangerous from the add: his crimes were numerous, there was a massive price on his head. To make it even clearer, the mugshot underneath the writing showed a scarred, angry-looking, murderous, alcohol-aged psychopath with thin, dark, soul-piercing eyes. This was someone who would be hard to take down. This was somebody who'd killed many people in freezing cold blood and went about it like it was a trip down to the store. All Samus had done was kill a few space pirates and get totally fucked over when going up against a real threat. She needed to do this tactfully. Well, not quite 'tactfully' but a lot more carefully than she was planning on being.

She needed to find out about what was going on before she formulated her plan. After a few minutes of pacing, she activated a computer terminal on the wall of the gunship and accessed the Galactic Internet, searching for anything relating to Jigrad. Nothing but headlines. She kept browsing, but couldn't find anything of use. This is where things got a tiny bit illegal. Samus brought up a separate program on her screen. This was one of the benefits of living in a piece of Chozo technology. She typed in several commands and the Chozo program scrolled through layers of ancient text, Samus scanning for any important info until it stopped, presenting a section of hieroglyphs that were highlighted in purple, standing out against it's amber surroundings. Samus selected it and a crudely constructed website appeared before her with pain white text sprawling across a blank, black background.

_**HELP-WANTED-.-ARMED-THUGS-FOR-GANG-FORMATION-.-HELPERS-WILL-BE-PAID-.-AMOUNT-UNDISCLOSED-.-MEET-ON-JIGRAD-COORDINATES-BROADCAST-ON-FREQUENCY-004232401-.-M-.-G-.** _

Gregg was putting together a gang? That was perfect. Samus had a perfect shot at getting at him alive and snagging the bounty. Now she needed to ready herself. The type of person who would show up would be a desperate lowlife with empty pockets and a breath of beer. Samus could fit most of those categories and she had a few beers in her fridge which made up for the last one. She looked the part as well, but still felt that a little dress-up wouldn't damage the situation. At the moment, she was in an outfit that consisted of a tank top, short shorts and a pair of boots, all of them in orange. Something that showed so much skin probably wasn't the best thing to wear around rapists. She walked into her walk-in wardrobe and basked in it's nigh-total bareness, but found what she was looking for. Her blue zero suit. This was a blue jump suit that clung to the wearer's skin and allowed them to move as if they were still naked. It was designed to make it easier to interface with the powersuit, something Samus must not use under any circumstances. It was too dangerous. She pulled the zero suit on and looked in the mirror. She still needed to cover up. She found a pair of pants she had left from her army days and a dark overcoat she had stolen from a would-be-mugger and fitted them over her. The zero suit was basically acting as her shirt, gloves and boots at this point.

As far as weaponry went, she had a useless stun pistol that could be used to create openings for her rocket boots. She looked the part. She finished her can of beer and tossed it behind her as he entered the cockpit. She was almost at Jigrad, and she was ready.


	2. Meeting the Man

The gunship dropped into Jigradian space and the desolated planted came into view. It had a strange purple colour to it and was scattered with short streaks of cloud, not of vapour but of smoke. It looked kind of like a moon, scattered in craters from the pirate mega-bombs, each one exposing oceans of magma from the planet's mantle. It would take a while before anyone would want to live there. That made it ideal for meetings of the illegal sort.

Samus grabbed hold of the manual controls and began accelerating her craft towards the planet, but she was stopped. A second ship had come into view in the distance, a modified Anhur class patrol ship. It was spray painted black with a green stripe encircling it. It was heading down to the planet too. Samus decided to follow this mysterious ship. After all, it could be Gregg himself showing up. The first craft had obviously noticed the gunship behind it as it was sending  signal too it. A com signal. Samus answered it and the pilot she was shadowing spoke to her. It was a man's voice, but not a normal one. It was raspy and was fed through a filter, distorting it.

"What are you doing?" He said, noticeably pissed off.

"Is this M.G.?" Samus asked, ignoring the mystery man's question.

"No the fuck it isn't! You've clearly read the add, check the frequency." Samus could tell she wouldn't like the dick in that cockpit. Then again, she probably wouldn't like any of them. Anyone who showed up for something like that would be some kind of lowlife twat with consciences emptier than their barren pockets.

"You're gonna save me time!" she said calmly through her mic.

"You'll get plenty of time if the Federation tracks our energy signatures. Or death. Break off or take your pick." Samus pulled away from her current course and locked the gunship in free fall, "Good girl. You learn something everyday, don't you."

"Fuck off, asshole!" Samus muttered before hanging the man up and punching the frequency into her comms terminal. She was met with static and a series of numbers. A tone sounded and the numbers started again. Quickly, she inputted the digits into the nav computer and a new flight-path appeared on her view screen. She adjusted the path to take her down a few hundreds of metres away from the spot as to not draw too much attention to it and flew across it, breaking the battle-damaged atmosphere and tearing across the purple sky to the spot she had chosen. It was a blast crater, probably from a pirate fighter craft or a stiletto fighter. The truth is it didn't matter, so long as the gunship could fit in there, and it could.

Before she disembarked her craft, she tore a piece off of the rag she used as a bed sheet and wrapped it around the lower half of her face. Her eyes were also covered with goggles she had for shielding her eyes for repairs. There was one hell of a sandstorm outside and sand-in-eyes and sand-in-mouth were two things she didn't want. She stood in the lift shaft in the middle of her craft and stayed still as she rose into the blitz of stone fragments that swept across the rocky landscape.

She walked across the gravelly plains, feeling the wind and sand whip her coat and her hair around erratically, before she reached the coordinates she was given. Shit. Nothing there. Why did she even come back to such a fucked planet. It now looked like Samus was going to have to change her name to something suggestive and spend her nights in other people's beds.

Suddenly, she saw a flash of green light to her left followed by a ferocious explosion, casting sand and newly-formed glass across the desert floor. Standing bolt upright, Samus took her weapon into her hand and scanned the horizon for life. Out of the swirling sand came a figure. It was tall, lanky and very alien. Its limbs were long and its torso was thin, making look like an armoured gecko or newt. Its head was helmeted and had features resembling some sort of tortured breed of bird with feathers protruding from the back and massive mantis-like eyes bulging from the metallic exoskeleton. It was armed. Attached to its dangling arms were massive artificial claws, housing powerful spazer weave cannons. This appearance was all too familiar for Samus and was a symbol of everything she despised. It was the image of a space pirate.

"Who goes there?" The pirate called through the wind, its vocal chords gnarled by years of genetic and mechanical experimentation.

"Give me one reason I fucking should." Samus demanded in her rage. The pirate parted the blades of his claws and revealed the barrels of his cannons before they were obscured by green sparks and shocks. He was following Samus's lead. Charge first, ask questions later.

"I already have," The pirate spat back, its tone hardening, "its about three metres to your eight o'clock." Samus realised her situation. She wouldn't be able to activate her power suit before the beam hit her and pushed through her stomach like a shotgun slug through a loaf of bread and the blast from her pistol wouldn't impact on its target quick enough to stop it from firing back. She discharged her weapon and holstered it, raising her now empty hands above her shoulders.

"I'm just a broke and hungry blonde who's looking for a job that pays well and three square meals a day." The pirate took a moment, moving its head subtly inside its helmet. It must've been talking to someone. It took a few seconds of inaudible chatter before it resealed its claws and beckoned the starving human before it to approach. She did so, passing the armoured creature as it motioned for her to delve deeper into the storm. She refused and beckoned for it to do so itself. It complied and took a few steps forward before disappearing into thin air. Samus followed suit and, suddenly, the shit storm around her faded into a cosy oasis. There was a small pool of water in the centre that rippled gently from the centre. Partially overhanging it was a parasol providing shade from the blazing artificial sun that hung above the four unsavoury-looking characters that were conversing over a barbecue on the beach. Samus pulled her facecloth down and her goggles up and rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't dreaming, or tripping or something along those lines.

"We've found our fourth answer, Master." the pirate growled to a human, sipping coconut water through a straw. He threw it to the sand and began to stroll over to Samus. There was no doubt. The pirate's master was Malcar Gregg. The three-hundred-million man himself. He was a shifty, yet powerful-looking man with dark eyes that bordered on black and a shaggy mop of black hair on his head.

"Name." He said. Nothing else, just  _name_. She couldn't use Samus. That would be a dumb fuck move. Better to not incriminate herself so easily. Well she'd better come up with something quick.

"Pearl... Pearl Basinger." She said, weakly. Malcar raised his eyebrow sceptically, before offering his hand to 'Pearl'. She took it and they shook hands. Like that, their contract was initiated.

"Hungry, Pearl? Thirsty?" Malcar asked, receiving an enthusiastic response from Samus, "Help yourself, kid. We're still waiting on someone and they haven't shown up on the scanners yet, so you'll have some time." Samus half walked, half stumbled to the barbecue and prepared herself something to eat before making her way to a small fridge under the parasol. She removed a beer can from it and proceeded to chug half of it in one.

"I'm Lana Chris." A female voice said without warning, startling the starved warrior resting in the shade. "I like to call myself Serris. D'you know what a serris is? It's an ell from planet-"

"Kid," Samus interrupted through a mouthful of burger, "I'm trying to eat." The Young girl persisted. She could barely be twenty, but had clearly already made enough bad choices for a lifetime. She had dyed her hair white with pink accents and had 'SERRIS' tattooed below her left eye. Some of her teeth were stained tobacco brown and the blood vessels in her eyes were bulging and spreading their redness to the rest of her eyeball. She may have been in a full body suit of armour, but her insides were undoubtedly wrecked.

"But no-one wants to listen to me. The serris is the coolest animal in The Galaxy. Did you know that they mate by-" Samus had had enough. She gently threw her beer can at the pest's head, not to cause harm, but for her to get the idea. She took a few moments, but she did, leaving on the statement that Samus owed her. WIP


End file.
